The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee needed just 30 minutes Tuesday to advance its latest funding bill for consideration by the full committee.
Subcommittee members proposed no amendments to the $49.6 billion appropriations legislation covering the Department of Energy and other agencies, but did air complaints on matters including the level of nuclear-weapon funding.
To start, the panel is failing to adhere to federal law by excluding funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository from the bill, Ranking Member Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said in his opening remarks to the session.
“The bill provides no money to advance … the Yucca Mountain license application process,” Simpson said. “Yucca Mountain, I would remind everyone, is still the law of the land, and the energy and water appropriations bill should reflect that fact.”
Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) noted afterward that the bill instead provides $27.5 million at DOE focused on advancing interim storage of the nation’s nuclear waste. That is the amount requested by the Trump administration, which is forgoing any effort to revive the Yucca Mountain project this year.
The 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act directed the Energy Department to dispose of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear-reactor fuel beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The agency filed its license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2008, but the Obama administration defunded the proceeding two years later. That is where things stand, despite the Trump administration’s unsuccessful efforts in the last three budget cycles to persuade Congress to cough up money to resume licensing.
The Appropriations Committee is due to mark up the bill next week, according to a press aide for the Democratic majority. A date and time had not been posted at deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
The House bill would provide $41 billion for the Department of Energy, including $18 billion for its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and nearly $7.6 billion for the Office of Environmental Management. Those numbers are, respectively, roughly $2 billion less and $1.4 billion more than requested by the Trump administration for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
Simpson said the bill “shortchanges” the NNSA’s nuclear-weapon mission, even though it adds $1.3 billion to the current appropriation.
Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee, pointed out that the majority-authored bill was “well below the budget request,” and said that “[w]e must assure our ability to deter nuclear attack remains reliable and effective.”
